In the retail sales industry, it is common to display goods for sale using a sales display, sales rack, or similar device for displaying the goods to customers. A conventional approach to displaying merchandise items in a retail store is to place a shipping container in which the merchandise items are shipped directly on a shelf. A disadvantage of using such containers for displaying retail products is that shipping containers are often designed primarily to provide protection to the contained products during shipping. As a result, such shipping containers do not provide for stable retail display of the container or contained items. The container can become misaligned on a shelf and even knocked off the shelf, causing the merchandise contents to be spilled out of the container and/or soiled or damaged. Misaligned containers are not aesthetically pleasing to customers, may be relocated to an incorrect position relative to product and pricing information on the shelf, and increase time and labor costs to reposition the shipping containers in the proper place on the shelf.
In the retail clothing industry, a conventional approach to displaying items, such as socks, for sale is to package a pair or multiple pairs of socks together using a hook or similar packaging means and hang the package on a peg or other display for hanging packages. One problem with this typical method of displaying items is that a certain amount of space is required between each row and between each column of items to allow for placing and removing the items without disrupting items on adjacent pegs. For example, in order for customers to reach between rows and columns to retrieve socks displayed in this fashion, a space of one to two inches generally is left between each row and column. As a result, a significant amount of space is used to display such items, which decreases the available retail floor space for other items.
In attempt to solve this problem of inefficient space utilization, various merchandise displays place like items together in a single container. Such containers can have dividers, or partitions, to organize the items in rows. Dividers within containers of items generally comprise less space between rows of items than the space required when items are mounted on rows and columns of pegs on a display board or wall. However, dividers that maintain proper alignment of merchandise items in a retail display have not been used in shipping containers for displaying items.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method for shipping and displaying merchandise items that provides for stable positioning of shipping containers in a retail display. There is also a need for a system and method for shipping and displaying merchandise items that provide for efficient utilization of space in both shipping and display of merchandise items.